Sunday, August 10, 2014

Part 2 - Analysing the Apollo-Soyuz pictures in FIGU CG member-Guido's book & his response to skeptics

Before I present my analysis of Guido's response to skeptics, let us make a list of all the issues raised by skeptics with Meier's photos along with references to the sources. Look out for the letters - I, G & K - which represents the following.

Time of witnessing the Apollo-Soyuz link-up as claimed by Meier is incorrect (K.95)

Soyuz had no spear-shaped aerials pointing forward on the outer end of solar panels - (G)

The actual aerials are U-shaped and are smaller in size than those in Meier's pictures - (G)

Aerials of real Soyuz were not longer than the width of solar panels - (G)

Shadows on Apollo-Soyuz in Meier's pictures do not correspond with the structure of two real spacecrafts - (G)

Docking unit or module carried by Apollo is missing in Meier's pictures

Naturally one would expect that Meier or his group members or
supporters - who publish a lot of material on the concepts of logical reasoning, rationality & positive criticism - would address each major objection (valid or invalid) raised by the
skeptics since late 1970's. But as far as I know, in any official
publication, there was zero response from them until 1991 when Guido
for the first time addressed these photos.

And how many
of these 16 claims so far raised by skeptics do you think Guido or for
that matter Meier or anyone from FIGU or supporters, responded officially in these 40 years since 1970's ?

The answer is 6.
However the points being addressed - 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 & 16 - are relatively very minor issues and logically speaking except point 16, the rest doesn't at all make the criticisms made on those respective points, go away or make them invalid. They are still valid & logical. Even the Guido's response to point 16 is absurd and we will get into it later.

Apart from Guido, Jereoen Jansen, a Meier case supporter from Holland, published an article online - Analysis of Korff's Spaceships of the Pleiades - in 2003, where he questioned whether the NASA image which Korff used to compare with the Meier's photo in his 1995 book was of a real Soyuz-19 spacecraft or of a model photographed on earth. He also argued that since Korff didn't provide any sources from where Meier could have used the still images from animation, his claims can thus be regarded as unfounded.

This NASA image of Soyuz-19 taken by Apollo CSM on July 18, is exactly what Korff used on his pg.244 of the 1995 book, which refutes Jansen's argument. And regarding the TV animation about which it was asserted by Korff & all other skeptics that Meier would have used for his hoax but failed to cite, I have succeeded in finding it out. We will get into this later.

Before getting into the nuts & bolts of Guido's analysis, first I would like to address a couple of not-so-strong or even invalid arguments raised by the above mentioned skeptics.

Point 5:
Andrei Palatkas, a video producer/editor from Romania says the following:

"There
is no indication from the said -1mm difference - between the two points
in the pictures that it could be the result of a 24 fps shooting speed.
One has to take into consideration many other factors such as the
shooting speed of Meier's camera, the angle and speed of the two moving
objects plus the angle and speed of the camera that captured these
images (be it a tripod or a spaceship). European TVs do not broadcast in 24 fps but in 25 fps."

Point 11:
Kal Korff wrongly assumed that the time - 16:30 hrs - as reported by Meier was the time he witnessed the docking of
Apollo-Soyuz. A look at CR 31, shows that the Meier was just referring
to the time when he was back over Earth after visiting other planets in
the solar system. After this, a considerable amount of time passed
before he allegedly witnessed the historic Apollo-Soyuz docking. According to this site,
the docking of Apollo-Soyuz occurred at 16:09 UTC which in Meier's
Swiss time (CET) is 17:09 hrs, which fits into the Meier's description
of events. But Korff seems to have incorrectly calculated & arrived
at the Swiss time of 19:15 hrs. This same counter-argument was also provided by Jereoen Jansen in his article in 2003.

Back to Guido's analysis:

Guido
conveniently avoids the major objections which makes up the
majority, as raised by skeptics which in reality have very serious
implications such as proving the pictures to be fakes, i.e they do not represent the real Apollo-Soyuz spacecrafts. But this doesn't seem to affect Guido nor Meier nor his group. And if that isn't enough, Guido makes some weird statements as to why these objections raised by German magazine were not valid & according to him can be easily refuted. He says the following on page.175 of 2004 book:

"According to the magazine article, the objections raised by a spacecraft "authority" were based on an "investigation" the authority conducted using NASA material, television pictures and a Billy Meier photo.

Now one needed to know, of course, which photo was actually used as a means of comparison ? The range of possible errors is quite extensive, especially with pictures of space.

As for my opinion: I am in the fortunate position of having almost a dozen Soyuz-Apollo pictures in my private collection to fall back on...These copies are, therefore quite sufficient to refute the quoted objections, one point after the other."

What did Guido argue ?

He sarcastically responds to the investigation conducted by a spacecraft expert(s?) using NASA material, TV pictures & one Billy Meier photo, by using double quotations for the words - authority & investigation - and completely disregards and ignores all but one claim (about DM). He then says that this so-called investigation depends upon the type of picture used for comparison as a "range of possible errors is quite extensive, especially with pictures of space". And then "as a good example", he cherry-picks & goes on to address just one of the many serious
objections raised by the spacecraft authority (and ignores the criticism from 1980 & 1981), which is about the missing docking
module (DM). Even the two pictures(#71 & #72) presented by Guido with having DM are not real and we
will get into it later.

This reasoning is ridiculous! What it implies is that in other NASA pictures of Apollo-Soyuz docking (have not even included 7 other new differences which are listed a little below):

there would be folded 2-segmented solar panels of different sizes & proportion on each side

there would be spear-shaped front facing aerials which are considerably long

there would be no backward-facing aerials

there would be U-shaped aerials facing backwards

there would be appropriate shadows corresponding to the structure of two spacecrafts

there would be a docking module that exactly looks like the one in Meier pictures

For all the above claims to be true, the Apollo-Soyuz spacecrafts need to be shape-shifters like the ones in the Transformers movie! Guido says that he has almost a dozen pictures which will refute all the above serious objections "one point after the other", yet he doesn't try to present them in all four different editions of his book - 1991, 2001, 2004 & 2012 - published in a span of more than 2 decades, which raises many doubts on his objectivity & reasoning. An unbiased, open-minded look at a single NASA's Apollo-Soyuz spacecraft image would beyond the shadow of a doubt, reveal that the Meier's pictures as fakes. We shall go into the topic of what went wrong in Part 3 under 'Implications'.

Drawing of a Soyuz spacecraft:

Guido has also presented a sketch of a Soyuz spacecraft on pg.175 of his 2004 book, which he apparently hoped would address some of the major objections raised by German magazine, but in reality this move by Guido can't be anymore absurd & it utterly fails.
This sketch of a Soyuz spacecraft is from the book - Sowjetische Raumfahrt (1988)
- which at a quick glance would more or less resembles the "Soyuz" in Meier's pictures. For
some reason he didn't mention or use this sketch to support his arguments. But the context seems to suggest
that he presented it to address the points - 9, 12, 13 & 14
- which contains major objections about the huge dissimilarities - configuration & sizes of the solar panels
& aerials - between the real Soyuz-19
spacecraft & the one in Meier's pictures.

Did Guido succeed ?

Absolutely NOT!
Reason
being that the sketch Guido presented belongs to an old Soyuz model (Soyuz 7K-OK) used by USSR between 1967 (Soyuz 1) & 1970 (Soyuz 9)
that has no resemblance at all with the real Soyuz 19 spacecraft (that used Soyuz 7K-TM, a variant of Soyuz 7K-T with solar) that docked
with Apollo in July 1975.

Guido's sketch vs Meier's Soyuz:

Close observation shows that even
Guido's sketch doesn't at all even match with Meier's own pictures. Since the Meier's
pictures are of very poor quality, I am unable to list out anymore
differences with certainty other than the below three.

Guido's sketch has four-segmented solar panels on each side of the
service module, where as Meier's seems to have only a two-segmented
solar panels on each side.

The four segments on each side in the sketch are of equal size,
where as in Meier's Soyuz (MS), one of the 2 panels on each side,
attached to the service module are small compared to the ones located
towards outside.

Also the rendezvous radar (see #2) on the top of orbiting module in sketch is missing in MS.

Meier's Soyuz vs Real Soyuz:

Apart from the already mentioned major differences between MS & real Soyuz (RS) spacecrafts by skeptics, I am listing some other differences which I have noticed. Below points 1 & 2 were cursorily mentioned by Korff in his 1995 book & that is why I am presenting it in more detailed form. See the below 2 color pictures for comparison.

Two-segmented solar panels
on each side of the service module exists in MS but a three-segmented solar panels on each side exists in RS

Size & proportions of each solar panels are different, though the size of each of them in both MS & RS increases towards outside

Long gaps are visible at the places of joints or segments between
solar panels in RS where as in MS, no such gap through which the
background (dark sky) becomes visible, exists

U-shaped aerials are present towards the side & attached to middle of solar panels edge in RS but in MS, they are faced backwards (see towards the left edge of the solar panel in MS photo)

Backward-facing spear-shaped aerials exist in RS but missing in MS

Color of MS is white(see #72 in 2004 Guido's book) where as RS is
dark green which is due to the thermal insulation fabric which was used
for early Soyuz spacecrafts & is still being used today, though still has a tint of green & may be olive (green+gray). Even, the black & white version of RS should show a dark grey Soyuz-19, not the overexposed white as seen in MS (1980 report)

Out of 4 VHF radio station antenna's on the Orbital module of RS, only 1 is visible in MS (see #72, Guido, 2004)

It means that the pictures which Meier has been promoting as genuine or almost genuine since 1975 and again strictly verified by ET - Ptaah, are NOT of the real Apollo-Soyuz spacecrafts but could be of models or as strongly suggested by all earlier skeptics & even by William Drews of NASA(see K.1981) that they are from TV, showing NASA animated simulations which was broadcasted all over the world in early 1970's.

Source of Apollo-Soyuz animation:

Some Meier case supporters suggested that finding an animation identical to Meier's pictures of Apollo-Soyuz would be very hard since there was no good software available for NASA to make good animations in
early 1970's and that NASA animations of their spacecrafts were done
with models & not with a software where as Meier's pictures in contrast looks "very good".

But as it turns out the source of Meier's pictures seems to come from a single unedited animation made by NASA simulating the entire Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), which was broadcasted all over the world in early 1970's and even was used in recent NASA videos & other documentaries celebrating the historic spaceflight of July 1975, when the world two superpowers USA & USSR co-operated & met in space in the middle of cold war. The primary purpose was as a symbol of the policy of détente that the two superpowers were pursuing at the time, and marked the end of the Space Race between them that began in 1957.

I have prepared a youtube video, that contains 6 different clips showing different excerpts that likely belongs to a single unedited-NASA animation, taken from 4 separate educational documentaries. Though I couldn't find the full unedited-NASA animation, these 6 clips are sufficient enough to conclude that the Meier's pictures are 100% fake.

Analysing available excerpts from the early 1970's NASA animation & Meier's photographs reveals that Meier's picture #2 from Abstract D of Col. Colman S. von Keviczky's 1980 report was identical to a frame that was part of a NASA animation broadcasted in early 1970's & which again was used in the Russian documentary, aired in the year 2000.

Pictures #1 & #3 from Abstract D, 1980 report have the identical structures that are present in Meier's pictures and of course the identical Apollo-Soyuz too, though now moved to a different location because of camera movement; which simply means that these photographs were also made from the same unedited-NASA animation.

Guido presents photographs #71 & #72 (clearly showing DM) in order to refute the German magazine's argument that the docking module was missing in Meier's pictures. But the obvious fact that Guido ignored is that this DM in Meier's pictures doesn't at all look close to the real DM. Meier's DM has 4-segments with two visible spherical tanks which are supposed to contain nitrogen & oxygen. But the real DM's pressure vessel and external gas tanks were covered with an
external insulation cover made of thin Inconel over a multi-layer
insulation blanket separated from the vessel by a framework. And that is why we don't see the 4-segmented DM with 2 spherical tanks on each side.

Some Meier supporters might argue that, Semjase may have made the DM's external insulation blanket transparent. But the already stated overwhelming counter-evidence makes this argument irrelevant & makes no sense.

Conclusion:

From Guido's book Und sie fliegen doch/And still they fly, I have analysed 5 pictures & have established that neither of these pictures could have been taken from the real Apollo-Soyuz docking, since there are very clear differences between the Apollo, Soyuz 19 and the Docking Module seen in the pictures and their real counterparts. Also I have found one exact match (pic #2) and three (pic #1, pic #3 & #72) as likely part of the same unedited-NASA animation from the early 1970's. Furthermore it is highly likely that picture #71 would also be from the same animation, because the Apollo CSM & the surrounding environment looks very identical to the ones in other pictures.

In the next part I will analyse the Apollo-Soyuz & other pictures published in Meier's Contact report 31, PPKB 1, 2002 and the implications of everything so far presented.

Disclaimer

The purpose of this blog is not to take a pro or con stance on the case but just to archive all the pro and con material that has been published in the media since 1970's. Occasionally, I present some of the current research that has been done either by me alone or with the help of others.

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